editorNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Mark Jenkins reviews movies for NPR.org, as well as for reeldc.com, which covers the Washington, D.C., film scene with an emphasis on art, foreign and repertory cinema.Jenkins spent most of his career in the industry once known as newspapers, working as an editor, writer, art director, graphic artist and circulation director, among other things, for various papers that are now dead or close to it.He covers popular and semi-popular music for The Washington Post, Blurt, Time Out New York, and the newsmagazine show Metro Connection, which airs on member station WAMU-FM. Jenkins is co-author, with Mark Andersen, of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital. At one time or another, he has written about music for Rolling Stone, Slate, and NPR's All Things Considered, among other outlets.He has also written about architecture and urbanism for various publications, and is a writer and consulting editor for the Time Out travel guide to Washington. He lives in Washington.NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Mark JenkinsFri, 02 Dec 2016 12:04:35 +0000Mark Jenkinshttp://kwit.org
Mark JenkinsOne of the visual motifs of the stark and shocking Lao Shi (Old Stone) is a cigarette burning in the dark. As the movie's taxi-driving protagonist inhales, the tip pulses red like a warning beacon. It signals danger on the road.The hazard is explained casually in the opening scene, in which Lao Shi (Chen Gang) waits while listening to a radio report about a driver who hit someone, but didn't kill him. Rather than be responsible for the victim's medical costs, the driver backed up and ran over him. In China, life can be cheaper than hospital bills.The radio news is a true story, and much else in Old Stone is real as well. Writer-director Johnny Ma, who was born in Shanghai but moved to Toronto at 10, used immersive techniques to make his first feature. He spent months in Guangde, the grungy small city where the story is set, to learn about the place and its people. Until the film switches its tone in the final minutes, cinematographer Leung Ming-kai shoots in a handheld documentaryIn The Dark Crime Thriller 'Old Stone,' A Taxi Driver Turns Amateur Detectivehttp://kwit.org/post/dark-crime-thriller-old-stone-taxi-driver-turns-amateur-detective
97727 as http://kwit.orgThu, 01 Dec 2016 22:00:00 +0000In The Dark Crime Thriller 'Old Stone,' A Taxi Driver Turns Amateur DetectiveMark JenkinsIn his defining moments on screen, Toshiro Mifune was glowering and silent, as if careful not to let slip a hint of his next move. To judge by Mifune: The Last Samurai, he was much the same off screen. Of the surviving friends, colleagues, and family members interviewed for this instructive but staid and unsurprising documentary, none has anything startling to reveal.That's not because the subject is Mifune, of course. Japanese culture doesn't encourage people to disclose their deepest feelings, which might be embarrassing or disruptive. And Mifune was profoundly Japanese, even if he was born in China and didn't see Japan until he was a 20-year-old draftee in 1940.Director and co-writer Stephen Okazaki begins with a flurry of clips from Mifune's best-known films, and then offers a quick history of Japanese cinema, emphasizing the chanbara (swordfight) genre. The rest of the movie is biographical and puts an understandable emphasis on Mifune's relationship with Akira Kurosawa, who'Mifune' Can't Quite Capture A Screen Legendhttp://kwit.org/post/mifune-cant-quite-capture-screen-legend
97419 as http://kwit.orgThu, 24 Nov 2016 22:00:00 +0000'Mifune' Can't Quite Capture A Screen LegendMark JenkinsYves Saint Laurent collides with Cormac McCarthy in Nocturnal Animals, a domestic melodrama/thriller that proceeds along two parallel tracks to a dead end. The second feature by fashionista-filmmaker Tom Ford boasts some gripping scenes and a few stabs at satire, but ultimately offers little beyond its assured sense of style.Ford — who wrote, produced, and directed — began with Austin Wright's Tony and Susan, a novel in which one of the characters is a novelist. Yet the result, despite a few narrative sleights-of-hand, isn't exactly meta-fiction. The movie is less about storytelling than character, and turns on two familiar (and now hackneyed) types from mid-20th-century psychological drama: the cold woman and the weak man.The woman is Susan (Amy Adams), introduced at her upscale L.A. art gallery. Her new show involves video of vastly obese women who dance naked in a parody of stripper chic. Ford presents the performance video as a critique of contemporary art-world sensationalism,Tom Ford Delivers Pristine But Portentous Pulp In 'Nocturnal Animals' http://kwit.org/post/tom-ford-delivers-pristine-portentous-pulp-nocturnal-animals
97080 as http://kwit.orgThu, 17 Nov 2016 22:00:00 +0000Tom Ford Delivers Pristine But Portentous Pulp In 'Nocturnal Animals' Mark JenkinsUnlike most horror flicks, The Monster offers solid performances and a real-world subtext. But those virtues aren't enough to keep the movie from getting stalled in some big bad woods, miles short of profundity.The tale's Little Red Riding Hood is Lizzy (Ella Ballentine), a tween whose relationship with her single mom, Kathy (Zoe Kazan), has become irreparable. The fault is not Lizzy's. Kathy is an alcoholic whose mothering ranges from simply neglectful to overtly abusive. So the two set off, not to grandma's house, but to dump Lizzy with her father.Kathy can't get out of bed on time, of course, so it's after midnight when she hits an animal with her car. It is, inevitably, a wolf. The crash disables the car and bloodies Kathy, and the responsible one of the pair — Lizzy, naturally — calls 911. A tow truck is immediately dispatched, but the ambulance will be delayed.There's not much to do but wait, worry, and listen to ominous sounds from outside the car. Writer-director Bryan Bertino'The Monster:' A Mother, A Daughter And A Great Big Thing That Goes Bump In The Nighthttp://kwit.org/post/monster-mother-daughter-and-great-big-thing-goes-bump-night
96722 as http://kwit.orgThu, 10 Nov 2016 22:00:00 +0000'The Monster:' A Mother, A Daughter And A Great Big Thing That Goes Bump In The NightMark JenkinsBefore Dog Eat Dog even reveals its title, one of its three central characters has already killed two people. Does Mad Dog slay his pious ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter because he's a sociopath and drug fiend? Or is he driven insane by the overwhelming pinkness of the women's home?Hyper-stylized color schemes and audaciously subjective point-of-view are among the things that drive the latest cinematic curiosity by the occasionally brilliant, always eccentric Paul Schrader. The movie is also fueled by gory slapstick, a scabrous sense of humor, and a ready supply of in-jokes. These assets compensate, but only partly, for a perfunctory story.The script is by Matthew Wilder, adapting a novel by criminal turned crime writer Edward Bunker. The late Bunker was such a Tarantino favorite that he was awarded the small role of Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs. That taut movie isn't much like this baggier one, but Schrader does emulate such bloody Tarantino-school romps as Kill Bill and OliverIn 'Dog Eat Dog,' A Scabrous, Stylized Tale Of Drug Dens — And Diapers http://kwit.org/post/dog-eat-dog-scabrous-stylized-tale-drug-dens-and-diapers
96279 as http://kwit.orgThu, 03 Nov 2016 21:00:00 +0000In 'Dog Eat Dog,' A Scabrous, Stylized Tale Of Drug Dens — And Diapers Mark Jenkins'Inferno' Stokes The Embers Of A Dying Franchise http://kwit.org/post/inferno-stokes-embers-dying-franchise
95938 as http://kwit.orgThu, 27 Oct 2016 21:00:00 +0000'Inferno' Stokes The Embers Of A Dying Franchise Mark JenkinsIf Astroboy creator Osamu Tezuka is the father of anime, its great-uncle is Edo-period artist Katsushika Hokusai. He's best known for The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the most-reproduced Japanese artwork ever, but his styles and subjects were impressively diverse. Among his most talented proteges was his daughter, known variously as O'Ei, Oi, or — in the English title of a new animated film — Miss Hokusai.This is not anime for fanboys who crave intergalactic battles, mutinous cyborgs, and buxom nymphets, although it does include a few fantasy sequences. The movie is domestic in scale, and focused on daily life in Edo (now Tokyo). It's quietly moving and exquisitely rendered, especially in its glowing depictions of light and flame in a city of wooden structures illuminated by lanterns, and all too vulnerable to fire.The film declares its irreverence with its opening scene, in which O'Ei walks across the bowed Sumida River bridge that Hokusai fans will recognize from one of his 36 Views ofIn 'Miss Hokusai,' The Daughter Of A Master Artist Comes Into Her Ownhttp://kwit.org/post/miss-hokusai-daughter-master-artist-comes-her-own
95262 as http://kwit.orgThu, 13 Oct 2016 21:00:00 +0000In 'Miss Hokusai,' The Daughter Of A Master Artist Comes Into Her OwnMark JenkinsVeteran French director André Téchiné usually employs ensemble casts and intricate narrative structures, but he downplays both in Quand on a 17 ons (Being 17). Shot mostly with handheld camera in a documentary-like style, the movie is uncharacteristically raw and linear. Still, it performs a few surprising twists before reaching an easily anticipated resolution.The tender drama returns to the subject of adolescent sexual awakening, the theme of one of the filmmaker's best-known features, 1994's Les Rouseaux Savage (Wild Reeds). Where that movie was set at a historical remove — in the early 1960s, with the Beach Boys on the soundtrack — this one is contemporary and immediate. The movie's directness must owe something to co-scripter Celine Sciamma, who's made such smart coming-of-age films as Tomboy and Bande de Filles (Girlhood).If the story is less populated than most of Téchiné's, that's partly because of its setting: the French Pyrenees, in the same general area where the directorPoignant Pangs In The Pyrenees: 2 Boys Come Of Age In 'Being 17'http://kwit.org/post/poignant-pangs-pyrenees-2-boys-come-age-being-17
94923 as http://kwit.orgThu, 06 Oct 2016 21:00:00 +0000Poignant Pangs In The Pyrenees: 2 Boys Come Of Age In 'Being 17'Mark JenkinsWhether boosting or buffeting the careers of the Beatles, the Doors and the Stooges, Danny Fields was the man behind the curtain. He remains so in Danny Says, a candid yet unrevealing documentary named for a song the Ramones wrote about Fields.The movie will be a revelation for some viewers, but that's probably a small group: punk fans who know the music, but not Fields' role in it. Those already familiar with many of these anecdotes — perhaps from Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's 1997 Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk — won't learn much. Others may find the subject overly cultish, or simply too ancient.Daniel Feinberg was born in Brooklyn in 1939, into a family he says was devoted to amphetamines. He identifies as gay but is equally taken with beauties of both sexes, and asserts he is attracted to intelligence. "Smart is sexy," he announces.Fields (the surname he adopted as a young adult) clearly was smart. He entered the University of Pennsylvania at 15, and Harvard'Danny Says' Surprisingly Little: Documentary About Rock Manager Lacks Insighthttp://kwit.org/post/danny-says-surprisingly-little-documentary-about-rock-manager-lacks-insight
94549 as http://kwit.orgThu, 29 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000'Danny Says' Surprisingly Little: Documentary About Rock Manager Lacks InsightMark JenkinsIn the 1960s, Choi Eun Hee and Shin Sang Ok were South Korean cinema's first couple. She was a movie star, he was an acclaimed director, and life with their two young children was considered glamorous. Then things got complicated.Shin had two kids with a younger actress, and his financially struggling production company was shuttered by the government. He and Choi divorced, and in 1978 the actress vanished. Later the same year, Shin also disappeared.Next stop, North Korea. Choi was kidnapped from Hong Kong on the orders of dictator-in-waiting Kim Jong Il, a movie buff who hoped his country's films could become more mainstream and entertaining.Shin was also snatched from Hong Kong, it seems, although his story is murkier. The Lovers and the Despot, British filmmakers Rob Cannan and Ross Adam's documentary, capably recounts the main facts of the case, but doesn't illuminate its darker corners.For those unfamiliar with Choi and Shin, this is a lively introduction. The film follows theA Korean Celebrity Couple Kidnapped By Kim Jong Il: 'The Lovers And The Despot'http://kwit.org/post/korean-celebrity-couple-kidnapped-kim-jong-il-lovers-and-despot
94246 as http://kwit.orgThu, 22 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000A Korean Celebrity Couple Kidnapped By Kim Jong Il: 'The Lovers And The Despot'Mark JenkinsWhen a nuclear bomb is in danger of accidental detonation, established procedures are carefully followed, and cooperation takes precedence over assigning blame. Or so the hopeful viewer might think before seeing Command and Control, a PBS American Experience documentary now in limited theatrical release before its broadcast debut. The movie, developed by director Robert Kenner from Eric Schlosser's book of the same name, reveals how a warhead atop a Titan II missile risked explosion in 1980 at a Strategic Air Command (SAC) silo near Damascus, Arkansas. Workers — one of whom was killed — scrambled to prevent disaster. But the force that prevented a wider catastrophe was sheer luck. This is not an unknown story; the fatal accident was reported at the time, though with fewer details than this film marshals. It's also not the worst Titan II calamity, at least in terms of human loss. In 1965, 53 construction workers died when hydraulic fluid ignited at another Arkansas silo. What givesIn Chilling Documentary 'Command And Control,' A Nuclear Explosion Narrowly Avoidedhttp://kwit.org/post/chilling-documentary-command-and-control-nuclear-explosion-narrowly-avoided
93922 as http://kwit.orgThu, 15 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000In Chilling Documentary 'Command And Control,' A Nuclear Explosion Narrowly AvoidedMark JenkinsThe Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger is often lyrical and sometimes poignant. Yet the impressionistic documentary about the Marxist art critic and self-styled "storyteller" — novelist, screenwriter and more — doesn't quite deliver what its title promises. We do see different seasons in Quincy, the French alpine hamlet where the London-born Berger has lived since the 1970s, but that natural cycle has little or no significance to most of the chapters. And the four renderings we get of Berger are sketches, not full portraits. Each segment is different in style, and was directed by a different person or team. Yet two figures, aside from the subject himself, are prominent. Actress Tilda Swinton, a longtime Berger friend, is seen or heard in three of the chapters, and directed the last one. British critic and art-film producer Colin MacCabe (now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh) directed the first installment and co-directed the third, in which he also appears. The'Seasons In Quincy' Offers A Fractured, Frustrating Portrait Of Critic John Bergerhttp://kwit.org/post/seasons-quincy-offers-fractured-frustrating-portrait-critic-john-berger
93152 as http://kwit.orgThu, 01 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000'Seasons In Quincy' Offers A Fractured, Frustrating Portrait Of Critic John BergerMark JenkinsItalian writer-director Nanni Moretti's Mia Madre (My Mother) is about an everyday drama in which nearly everyone eventually participates: the death of a parent. It begins not in a hospital but in the streets, where striking factory workers clash with police. It looks real enough, until the director yells, "cut!" The ability to interlace reality and fantasy is one of cinema's strengths, and at times Mia Madre is as bewitchingly surreal as 8 1/2, Fellini's stream-of-consciousness classic. But Moretti's movie is less swaggering and more tender. The director who yells "cut!" is Margherita (Margherita Buy), whose speciality is the sort of social-realist picture few filmmakers attempt anymore. Certainly not Moretti, whose political commentary is typically leavened with whimsy and introspection. Perhaps he assigned the director's gig to the fictional Margherita to temper Mia Madre's autobiographical origins. It was inspired by the loss of his own mother while he was making 2011's Habemus'Mia Madre' Weaves Memory, Fantasy And Film Into A Poignant Rumination On Loss http://kwit.org/post/mia-madre-weaves-memory-fantasy-and-film-poignant-rumination-loss
92771 as http://kwit.orgThu, 25 Aug 2016 21:00:00 +0000'Mia Madre' Weaves Memory, Fantasy And Film Into A Poignant Rumination On Loss Mark JenkinsIn such dudes-gone-wild comedies as Pineapple Express and The Hangover, guys get incredibly wasted, do phenomenally stupid stuff, stumble into spectacular trouble, and yet somehow emerge relatively unscathed. Of course, scenarios like that don't play out in the real world.Except that they do, according to War Dogs, an amusing if underachieving bad-boys farce based on the escapades of two twentysomething gunrunners. Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz are the actual names of actual people, high-school weed-buddies who went from attending an Orthodox synagogue in Miami Beach to brokering surplus Cold War-era ammo in Albania.As depicted here, the ruthless Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and the impressionable Packouz (Miles Teller) are quite similar to the portrayals in Guy Lawson's 2011 Rolling Stone story, published soon after the two were busted for defrauding the U.S. government. That doesn't mean everything in the movie really happened. After all, War Dogs was directed and co-written by Todd'War Dogs' Cries Havoc And Lets Slip The Dudes Of Warhttp://kwit.org/post/war-dogs-cries-havoc-and-lets-slip-dudes-war
92367 as http://kwit.orgThu, 18 Aug 2016 21:00:00 +0000'War Dogs' Cries Havoc And Lets Slip The Dudes Of WarMark JenkinsAfter decades in which diversity of roles — and accents — seemed to guide her career, Meryl Streep has come to specialize in silver-haired divas. Since 2005, she's played a cookbook maven, a fashion magazine editor, and a British prime minister. Now, in Florence Foster Jenkins, she plays a real-life diva, albeit one who couldn't sing. That doesn't seem to have fazed Jenkins and, of course, it doesn't fluster Streep. Coq au vin, Paris fashion week, the Falklands War, Mozart — she can handle them all, and at roughly the same pitch. Pitch is a problem for Jenkins (no relation to this writer), whose artistic delusions are enabled by inherited wealth. Her audiences are carefully selected by her common-law husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant, and who else could it have possibly been?). A failed Shakespearian actor himself, and thus sensitive to ridicule, Bayfield excludes "mockers and scoffers." Listeners are discreetly paid to attend Jenkins' soirees, either directly or via support forAria Woman Makes Good: In 'Florence Foster Jenkins,' A Weak Voice, A Strong Hearthttp://kwit.org/post/aria-woman-makes-good-florence-foster-jenkins-weak-voice-strong-heart
91961 as http://kwit.orgThu, 11 Aug 2016 21:00:00 +0000Aria Woman Makes Good: In 'Florence Foster Jenkins,' A Weak Voice, A Strong HeartMark JenkinsIn protest against their parents, two boys stop talking to them. That's the premise of two Yasujiro Ozu classics, 1932's I Was Born, But.... and 1959's Ohayo. Those films inspired Little Men, directed by Ira Sachs, who has shown an Ozu-like humanism in previous efforts like Love Is Strange. Sachs' latest is also warm, subtle, and observant, but feels a little undercooked. Unlike Ozu's kids, Jake (Theo Taplitz) and Tony (Michael Barbieri) are not brothers. The two 13-year-olds don't even know each other as the story begins, when Jake learns his grandfather Max has died. Soon, Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) are hosting the post-funeral reception at Max's home in Brooklyn. They intend to move themselves and son Jake into the building, which Brian and his sister Audrey (Talia Balsam) have inherited. Downstairs, a struggling dress shop owned by a Chile-born Leonor (Paulina Garcia), single mom of Tony, is paying one-fifth the market rent. Brian is an underemployed actor whoIn The Warm But Underdeveloped 'Little Men,' Kids Bond While Parents Feud http://kwit.org/post/warm-underdeveloped-little-men-kids-bond-while-parents-feud
91539 as http://kwit.orgThu, 04 Aug 2016 21:00:00 +0000In The Warm But Underdeveloped 'Little Men,' Kids Bond While Parents Feud Mark JenkinsEarly in director Catherine Corsini's Summertime, a group of radical women breaks into an asylum while one of their number distracts the guard by pretending to be just too helpless to decipher a map. And some people say feminists don't have a sense of humor.The moment is comic, but the Janis-Joplin-fueled caper is crucial both to the women and to the movie. They rescue a male friend who's been confined, drugged, and electroshocked for the offense of being homosexual.Some of the women argue that the action is irrelevant to the feminist cause. A new member of the group, Delphine (Izia Higelin), disagrees. What she doesn't say is that she's gay herself.The discussion and the rescue also quickly sketch the story's context. It's 1971 in France, a time of leftist ferment. But neither women nor gays have been invited to the uprising. Abortion is still illegal — until 1975 — and the gay rights movement is nascent.The period's heady political atmosphere is a recurrent theme in recent FrenchA Love Story Set In France's Heady Political Pasthttp://kwit.org/post/love-story-set-frances-heady-political-past
90729 as http://kwit.orgThu, 21 Jul 2016 21:00:00 +0000A Love Story Set In France's Heady Political PastMark JenkinsIn The Infiltrator's opening scene, Bob (Bryan Cranston) swaggers through a Florida bowling alley. He's just about to make a massive drug deal when he feels a burning pain in his chest. The cause is a ready-made metaphor: Bob is an undercover cop, and the microphone strapped to his torso has overheated, making his secret identity a searing liability. This actually happened — probably — since The Infiltrator is based on former U.S. Customs agent Robert Mazur's memoir of the same name. And if the film doesn't offer an unexpected vantage on the international drug trade (it fits neatly alongside movies like Traffic, Rush, and Escobar: Paradise Lost, instead of carving out a category of its own), it's distinguished by its craft and verve. The familiarity of the undertaking is exemplified by the cast. Bob is played by Bryan Cranston, who's best known for the druggie drama Breaking Bad. The part of his exuberant informant/sidekick Emir, high on adrenaline rather than cocaine, goes to John'The Infiltrator' Offers A Familiar But Stylish Look Inside A Drug Kingpin's Empirehttp://kwit.org/post/infiltrator-offers-familiar-stylish-look-inside-drug-kingpins-empire
90260 as http://kwit.orgThu, 14 Jul 2016 21:00:00 +0000'The Infiltrator' Offers A Familiar But Stylish Look Inside A Drug Kingpin's EmpireMark JenkinsShe's only eight years old, but Zin-Mi knows a lot about her homeland. It is, she says, "the land of the rising sun" and "the most beautiful country." Of course, North Korea is the only place Zin-Mi has ever seen, and the only place she's ever likely to see.Shot during two visits over a year, Under the Sun chronicles Zin-Mi's preparations to become a member of the Children's Union, a group in the tradition of the USSR's Young Pioneers. The uniformed tykes wear red scarves, and present red flowers to dignitaries weighed down by medals that cover their jackets. The kids also listen to endless lessons, presented by both young schoolteachers and elderly war veterans, about how the Kim dynasty defeated Japanese imperialists and American "cowards."At first, Russian director Vitaly Mansky presents Zin-Mi and her equally earnest parents without comment. But then, during a family dinner, the filmmaker offers multiple takes of the scene. He shows the men who interrupt to coach the three playersThe Making Of A Propaganda Film In 'Under The Sun'http://kwit.org/post/making-propaganda-film-under-sun
89967 as http://kwit.orgFri, 08 Jul 2016 23:18:00 +0000The Making Of A Propaganda Film In 'Under The Sun'Mark JenkinsMathilde (Lou de Laage), the young French Red Cross doctor at the center of The Innocents, is in late-1945 Poland to tend to injured French POWs, patching them up so they can be sent home. She could hardly have expected to be summoned to a local convent to care for nearly a dozen pregnant nuns.The nunnery is also a surprising locale for writer-director Anne Fontaine, best known for Coco Before Chanel and such erotic capers as Gemma Bovery and The Girl from Monaco, whose accounts of female sexual independence blithely indulge male fantasy. Although it contrives something of a happy ending, The Innocents is darker than the usual Fontaine fare.Fontaine and co-writer Pascal Bonitzer, who collaborated on Gemma Bovery, adapted an existing script by Sabrina B. Karine and Alice Vial. Perhaps that's why this movie is both grimmer and meatier than the director's previous efforts.Loosely based on actual events, the movie begins about nine months after one of its principal horrors: Soviet soldiersFaith And Fear In A Story Of 'Innocents'http://kwit.org/post/faith-and-fear-story-innocents
89507 as http://kwit.orgThu, 30 Jun 2016 21:00:00 +0000Faith And Fear In A Story Of 'Innocents'